Doc, let us know if you can get a take on the Philly gun issue from him. The Philly mayor is the biggest gun control advocate in the state and the Governor isn't much better.

TIA

EDIT: Never mind, Found the documentary, watching it now..........

The video is right above your post. I will talk to him tomorrow. As a journalist, he is a great storyteller. His report on piracy was fascinating. The report on water boarding, where he allowed himself to be water boarded as a demonstration was powerful.

As a former Navy Seal he is quite familiar with advanced weaponry.I would not be at liberty to reveal his personal views, and in his journalism he reports the facts and tells a story straight down the middle. But there's always a message between the lines of the obvious. How one perceives that message will depend on their own prism.

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The video is right above your post. I will talk to him tomorrow. As a journalist, he is a great storyteller. His report on piracy was fascinating. The report on water boarding, where he allowed himself to be water boarded as a demonstration was powerful.

As a former Navy Seal he is quite familiar with advanced weaponry.I would not be at liberty to reveal his personal views, and in his journalism he reports the facts and tells a story straight down the middle. But there's always a message between the lines of the obvious. How one perceives that message will depend on their own prism.

But he really does need to get himself a one-handed open/close pocket knife. That thing where you put the back of the knife against your hip and push it closed went out with the Frug.

These work great, and you can get springs that do some cool stuff when installed properly

China watch: those looking for info may find this source worthwhile a bit from a recent post and link: My take is tha China like the U.S. has no plan B, so China will push the export button..

More terrible trade numbers from ChinaFebruary 12th, 2009 by Michael

The thing to remember is that for the rest of the world it doesn’t really matter what explanation Chinese policymakers give for this high and rising trade surplus. They will consider the fact that with China’s export of overcapacity extremely high, and growing even further, anger within their political constituencies cannot help but rise. Of course China needs to fight rapidly rising unemployment, but so does nearly every other country in the world. At all costs China must move quickly to defuse the threat of trade war, but unfortunately I see little evidence that Chinese policymakers are even beginning to understand China’s role in the Great Global Imbalance.

And the problem is certainly not helped by actions like last week’s posting, on the website of the research institute associated with China’s Ministry of Finance, of a report arguing that China’s central bank should “actively guide” the exchange rate and devalue the RMB to about 6.93 against the dollar. The purpose of depreciating, the report said, was to help maintain economic growth and bolster employment.

Carl Icahn cuts Ichan Holdings equity fartfolio by 50%, also sells off 50% of the equities in his own personel fartfolio in 4th quarter 2008....

That would have been "news" if it wasn't already 2-3 months old....

Looks like Carl panicked or got margined out of alot of positions, like all the other "masters of the universe"

(Full disclosure: I actually like Icahn)

Do you want to play into "MARK MY WORDS" game?

Mark my words that when the next Forbes billionaires list will be printed (I don't recall when that happens), assuming it will be calculated after the crash - at least 3% of former billionaires will be gone.

In some countries it will be more or less unchanged. In US it will be slightly changed. In eastern Europe it will be chopped by 50%.

Da problem I have with this comparison is that I believe this is a higher degree bear market than that one.

My best guess is that the 02/03 low was primary 4 bottoming, i.e.- a primary bear. That mean '07 was the cycle top -- and possibly also a supercycle top.

Our current bear is, at the very least, one degree higher than 02/03 -- i.e.- it's a cycle degree bear. Our best hope for the fractal to play out on a shorter time frame is if Primary A ended (or ends) soon -- which is entirely possible. Then we could play out the fractal with a Primary B bounce for awhile, and everyone who got burned 5 years ago would be fooled this time, thinking they'd learned from that market -- unaware that the rules have changed. That would set up Primary C, which would be the big Shorty-type NASTY.

There is another possibility I'm considering (it's remote, but maybe worth mentioning). That is that Primary A ended Nov. and Primary B is ending now/soon -- this is unlikely, because it would be a very abridged B, but if the cycle downdrafts are strong enough, anything's possible. So we could head (more or less) directly to the C wipeout, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.

Who knows which is right, it won't become apparent until we're farther along -- but either way, even if we form a "bottom" here similar to 02/03, I believe it will eventually (as in a year or two at most) fail in spectacular fashion.

50% here, 50% there and pretty soon we have some real bloody damage to portfilios...

lets get a test of the november lows first and see, possible 30-40% technical rally after said test,an undercut of the lows should produce a buyable washout

otoh bradley model doesn't have another major turn until mid-July, perhaps we just slowly grind down with 5-10% reaction rallies until then

I never saw anyone producing a reasonable way to calculate P/E for S&P. Simply adding all earnings together without weight seems useless for me. It's an acceptable approximation during normal mild recessions, but right now it's almost meaningless.

China watch: those looking for info may find this source worthwhile a bit from a recent post and link: My take is tha China like the U.S. has no plan B, so China will push the export button..

More terrible trade numbers from ChinaFebruary 12th, 2009 by Michael

The thing to remember is that for the rest of the world it doesn’t really matter what explanation Chinese policymakers give for this high and rising trade surplus. They will consider the fact that with China’s export of overcapacity extremely high, and growing even further, anger within their political constituencies cannot help but rise. Of course China needs to fight rapidly rising unemployment, but so does nearly every other country in the world. At all costs China must move quickly to defuse the threat of trade war, but unfortunately I see little evidence that Chinese policymakers are even beginning to understand China’s role in the Great Global Imbalance.

And the problem is certainly not helped by actions like last week’s posting, on the website of the research institute associated with China’s Ministry of Finance, of a report arguing that China’s central bank should “actively guide” the exchange rate and devalue the RMB to about 6.93 against the dollar. The purpose of depreciating, the report said, was to help maintain economic growth and bolster employment.